According to news reports, LinkedIn has seen major revenue earnings increases and that leads me
to believe there are more business professionals taking advantage of this professional business social media site.
LinkedIn profiles can help you stand out from the crowd when you’re looking for a job or if you’re an entrepreneur seeking new clients. If professionals are flocking to use this site, that means that you should make certain you not only have a professional presence, but you should have a complete profile as well. Here are my tips to making certain your LinkedIn profile is not only complete, but compelling:
Working from home as a solopreneur is something that brings with it the luxury and freedom of
setting the schedule (and wearing the wardrobe!) of my choosing. There is also the isolation and void of having no one to bounce ideas off of and no one to be accountable to. I don't have a boss hanging over my shoulder expecting resutls by 5 pm. Of course, I have clients that expect results, but as long as they're delivered in a timely fashion, it doesn't really matter if I perform at 6 am or 6 pm or midnight, right? Wrong... if I want to have any kind of a lifestyle.
Last week I made the leap and "got" an accountability partner. My partner,Anne McAuley, is involved in the same field of expertise that I am and that's a boon as we know the obstacles faced in that career path and we can help each other brainstorm and our connections feed off of each other. We sent messages to each other of the items to which we wanted to be held accountable and when we got on the phone we hashed them out, set goals and planned for another talk. I think it's going to work!
In a conversation with Mary Cravets. the Business Speed Networker, she mentioned that many people don't kick projects off because of: Perfection Stagnation. Bottom line... you feel your every word, your every project, your every webpage has to be perfect before you release it to the public.
Are you being held back by your own fears of perfection? Do you have blog post ideas that you simply haven't put down on paper yet because you're not certain if they're good enough?
Have you attended a networking event and been too nervous to give your elevator speech because you aren't sure if the exact wording? What about starting a newsletter to reach out to your followers and friends? Have you thought of starting one but never kicked the project off because you weren't sure what to write in it, how to design it, what newsletter program to use, etc. etc.
Are you letting your ideals of perfection get in the way of doing... well... anything? What is making your projects stagnate? How can you move past it?
I've worked both sides of the public relations desk -- as a public
relations manager for a hospital and
as a journalist that received press
releases. There are ways to get your news printed and ways to get your news ignored.
Avoid these
top three public relations mishaps and set yourself apart from the competition:
It’s easy to lose focus when you’re trying to squeeze your blogging and social media tasks into your regular daily activities. If you want to make blogging and social media a priority as a way to grow your business reach you need to take the endeavor seriously. Blogging and social media are as crucial to growing your business as is face to face networking and selling your widgets.
There are five tips to keep yourself online and on track blogging:
Got passion? Personally, I'd rather "got passion" than "got milk" but that's for another post. I was pondering the other day what I might be passionate about. I mean chocolate and coffee and my Diva Poodle Henrietta are givens, but what about my work? My life calling? Do I have a life calling? I think I am still figuring that out, but if you're not sure if you're following your passion, here are five questions to ask yourself:
Are you an expert at what you do? The more you know about your job, the better you will perform it and the better you will feel about what you do. Be an expert in your field.
Do you incorporate your hobbies into your work or your outside life? Make certain you pursue your hobbies and passions outside of the office as a way to make the rest of your life more enjoyable, especially if there is no way to work them into your daily 9-5.
There are some small business strategies that are just common sense but there are times in the life of an entrepreneur when it's nice to have a quick refresher in what those business-growing steps are. Here are my quick business renewal strategies:
Don't worry (too much) about the economy. Sure, it may be a fact of life that you don't want to completely ignore, you don't have any control over it so continue to forge ahead doing your best and providing your clients service and products that are above and beyond.
Set goals. How will you know if you've arrived if you don't know where you have to be? Is your goal a specific number of clients? A certain number of sales made? A particular monthly income? Whatever the goal, writing it down and setting milestones to reach it will help you achieve it.
